The Places We Go
by Mystic25
Summary: AU fill in the blank in DH Part One, at Shell Cottage. Harry/Hermione undertones.


"The Places We Go."

Summary: AU fill in the blank in DH Part One, at Shell Cottage. Harry/Hermione undertones.

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling and Warner Brother's own the rights to Harry Potter…bastards.

Rating: T for images of torture and the like.

A/N: This will be a sort of combination of a fill in the blank from the scene as written in the book and as shown in the movie.

A/N #2: The title is a spin on the Dr. Seuss book: Oh The Places You'll Go.But, advanced warning, while this is not macabre, it is not a kids story either.

* * *

**xxxxXxxx**

"_It means, dirty blood, Mudblood is a very foul name for someone _

_with non magic parents, someone like me."_

-"Hermione Granger" "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

"_Hermione, you're alright, we're safe…"_

"Harry Potter" "Deathly Hallows: Part One"

**xxxxXxxx**

* * *

Ron's ginger hair burned like fire in the lamplight. His head was bowed, fingers raking through his flames of hair, palms resting on his ears, trying to block out the sound.

Of the screaming.

Of Hermione's screaming permeating through the walls of the tiny upstairs bedroom, spilling out the closed door and down the stairs.

Ron paced, and his pacing created shadows on the walls.

The screaming reached a high pitch, a note of almost impossibility. The sound backed Ron against the wall, clawing at his ears like he wanted to rip them away if it would stop that horrible sound.

He raised his head up to Harry who was almost mirroring his position, against the other wall, except with his arms down at his side, looking ever the caged animal as he was, wincing with each shattered scream.

"I can't listen to this!" Ron shouted to Harry even though he was only a foot away, because he didn't know what else to do. He heads towards the staircase."I have to do something!-"

His movement was stilled by Bill's hand on his shoulder. "Fleur's in there with her Ron," His older brother gripped his shoulders with strong fingers. "Let her take care of her first."

Ron's shoulders heaved under Bill's hands, hearing all the implications of what Bill's words meant, of what had been done to her, of how Fleur would have to 'take care' of Hermione.

Ron wanted to vomit.

Behind him Luna Lovegood watches him with her widened eyes. "Fleur knows how to care for people Ron." a small hand goes on Ron's shoulder. "She'll be alright." A cut is bleeding on her forehead, and she pulls the rag down from her face that Fleur had given her earlier, and stares at it with the curious half dreamy look that she gave everything. Her clothing is even more filthy in the lamp light then in was in the dark cellar of Malfoy Manor, and her cheeks are sunken and hollow from lack of proper food. But none of that seems to really bother her, because she knows that she has been rescued and will be taken care of.

Ron doesn't say anything to Luna, or make any indication that he knows she is touching him. He let himself be pushed back into a worn looking sofa by Bill and lets his brother drop a knitted afghan over him. Luna perches on the arm, looking a like a colorful wounded bird, keeping some sort of guard over Ron.

Bill looked from Ron to Harry, seeing mirrored looks of pain in their faces. They were both still covered in sand from burying Dobby out on the beach; grief covering as much of their faces as the sand itself.

Luna had appirated out of nowhere into his and Fleur's kitchen with Kreacher the smelly little House Elf, along with the wand maker Olivander, and a Goblin, all of them looking half starved and abused. Luna seemed the worse of them all, babbling about Dobby, looking like she had fought her way out of a nest of dragons, covered in dirt and not a little blood. Bill hand forced her into a kitchen chair and was trying to get the girl to talk coherently when a scream from his wife made him rush over to her.

Harry and Ron had shown up on the doorstep with Hermione half supported, half carried in between them. She was barely consciousness, and bone pale, her arm dripping blood onto the ground. The pleading words blasting out of both boy's eyes as soon as they laid eyes on Bill: _"Fix her."_

"What happened?" Bill's looked between the pair of them again, his hand remaining on his younger brother's shoulder. "Luna looks like she's been attacked, Olivander and that Goblin-" he swallowed thickly- Dobby's dead-" he next swallow almost choked him. " -and Hermione-"

Harry looked over to where Bill was standing by Ron, hand on his shoulder, feeling suddenly lonely in the presence of two brothers, of Luna sitting there, melting into part of their bond. The dirt from Dobby's grave was still under his nails, and his only other friend-

Footsteps turned all three young men's eyes up to the second floor landing. The watched Fleur descend the steps hurriedly, her face gray and tight, her white blonde pony tail in disarray.

She was jumped on immediately by Ron and Harry as soon as she reached the bottom level.

"She alright?" Ron towered over his smaller sister-in-law, watching her move past him without a word and into the kitchen. She reached into a cupboard, pulling out a small folding of towels that were normally reserved for drying dishes.

Fleur tore up the towels into long strips, concentrating fully on this task, keeping her eyes away from Ron the entire time, so that when she finally raised her eyes to him he saw the emotions in them for the first time.

And it was a look that was equal parts sad and painful. "She is not good Ron." She grouped the torn strips together, and wound them into a bundled roll.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry's demanded, his own words hammering his heart against his ribs as his mind came up with a myriad of terrifying answers to his question. His eyes then travel downwards, and notices for the first time the wooden bowl that Fleur has brought down with her. She is tipping its contents into the basin of the sink of their small kitchen- a pink tinged water. His eyes widen. "Fleur?"

"Bellatrix-" Fleur cuts on the tap on with a squeak, rinsing out the bowl, and this time when her eyes are raised again to theirs, they are devastated. "She haz used the Criuciatius Curse on 'er," her hands are shaking as she drops the torn rags into the bowl. "I am doing what I can."

Harry feels his legs almost give out, feels vomit come to his mouth. His hand grips the edge of the counter. _No._

Another scream from the tiny bedroom upstairs, and it feel like someone stabbed him. That scream, it was the sound of pure raw pain, of absolute terror.

"_Mon Doi!" _Fleur pushes past Harry and Ron and races up the stairs, the skirts of her dress flying madly behind her.

And Ron is running behind her, taking stairs two at a time. Bill runs after his brother with cries of "_Ron, wait!"_

And Harry is left alone, hearing the screaming of a memory of Bealltrix Lestrange, of her bringing out the horrible screaming from Hermione, screaming like she was being ripped apart like an insect.

Blood is pounding in Harry's ears, exploding the sound of his heartbeat against his ear drums. His fingernails tear into the flesh of his palms, gripped into fists, his vision tunnels into black.

"Harry?"

A small hand is on his shoulder, gripping it. Luna's wide eyes are no longer light, they flash deep concern. Blood bleeds like ink into the rag pressed to her head. "Harry she sounds scared."

Hermione screams again, sounding just like she did then, not scared, terrified, _tortured._

He blinks, and then he screams:

"_Hermione!"_ He moves past Luna and gropes the railing as he tears up the two flights of narrow stairs. The little wooden hallway is a blur, then he is at the opening of a door. He stops, unable to move.

Fleur is kneeling beside the bed, Bill behind her, handing off rags and poultice bottles to his wife, who is using them to clean the wound on Hermione's arm.

Ron is sitting on the mattress, beside Hermione who has tucked herself into a ball in the middle of the bed. One of Ron's arms is across her back, rubbing it, and the other is gripping her free hand. Her eyes are glassy, her face pale and sweating, breathing way too fast. Her screaming is quieter, muffled into Ron's shoulder. But she is trembling, rocking with the force of her pain.

Fleur's wipes bleeding gashes on her arms with a rag, dabbing poultices into the wounds. She whispers soothingly to Hermione during her ministrations, touching her hair, trying to calm her.

In the glow of the lamp light Harry can see the ugly cuts on her arm, bleeding letters forming the word: '_Mudblood' _ carved jaggedly, but very clearly, into her flesh.

His world tilts again. _No, Hermione No, not this-_

"_Mudblood is a very filthy name for someone with non magic parents, someone like me." _

Hermione's hurt voice from song long ago morphs into the whimpers of his best friend looking no older then she did then. He wants to scream, he wants to break apart.

He grips the door frame, the wood squeaks under his hand.

Her head raises at the sound. Her eyes are bloodshot, and wide and scared.

"Harry," her words are lost in a whispered sob, one that she hadn't realized she had been holding in until it was born. A rush of tears leaking down her face.

Harry comes into the room and as soon as he is within reach, she is upon him, reaching for him.

Her actions cause Ron to pull back, standing up, at first tinged with just enough hurt at the rejection. But then she grabs huge handfuls of Harry, clinging to as much of him as she can, even with her injured arm- looking so beaten and raw. And Ron only feels sad and hurt, for her.

Harry draws his arms across her back, face buried in her hair, holding her so tightly, feeling her sobs echo against him.

His chest hurts, everything hurts.

"It's alright," Harry doesn't know what to say, so he lies, and the his hurt intensifies. He is stroking her hair before he realizes he is doing it. He has felt the blinding pain of the Cruituas Curse, he knew the agony that touched produced after it, how it felt like your insides were on fire.

But, Hermione feels so small in his arms, her cries so lost, that he was scared she would break if he let her go. So he holds on to her. "It's alright, you're alright." Her tears dampen his shirt while his fall into her hair.

Hermione holds to Harry for, sobbing like something broken. He is so warm against her, and she clings to that. Each touch makes her body scream on a maddening pain that is boiling through her bones; but she doesn't let go. She would take pain if it meant someone could hold her. She cries until no other reason exists except she doesn't know how to stop. She doesn't know how long this goes on, everything is hazy and gray, until finally she lays against Harry spent and exhausted.

Harry still strokes her hair and doesn't say a word. He hears her crying starts to die out, until her body feels heavier against his. He shifts her so that she is lying with her head in his lap, and she follows his movement complacently curling up on her side.

Fleur comes around to the other side of the bed, and with gentle coaxing, she pulls Hermione's injured arm away from her and begins to wrap it in the cloth. The wound is garish and has bled freely and blood blots the cloth like drops of red rain before they disappear with one last roll of the bandage.

Fleur ties off the bandage, and runs a soothing hand through Hermione's hair. She presses a glass to Hermione's mouth, getting her to swallow a sleeping draught whispering soft and comforting sounding French before rising.

Ron draws a corner of the blanket over Hermione's curled frame, and watches her for long time. Faint but distinct tremors still rack her slender frame. She looks like half of her is gone, lost to Belatrix on the floors of Malfoy Manor.

Ron watches her, he hopes that the potion takes effect soon. That she sleeps, that she rests, because he cannot stand to see her so wounded.

Harry strokes her hair, and hopes the same thing, feeling the well of guilt in threaten to drown him because she had been tortured and carved up – _for him._ "It'll get better Hermione," He voice shakes as much as the trembling fingers in her hair. He lies, he lies they are wishes, hoping that if he repeats them enough, they will come true. "I promise."

Hermione tries to pretend that she is somewhere else, that there is no war, or pain, or hurt. But it doesn't work, it has been too long already. It is now just a memory, like a cherished old song she would never really hear again.

She starts to feel the tug of the sleeping draught pull at her consciousness, dulling her senses, making her limbs feel heavy and loose. Harry's hand moves from her hair to stroke her shoulders, and travel down her arm. She closes her eyes, and holds to Harry's touch sweeping her skin, and lets it comfort her because she has nowhere else to go.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

Birds.

Ron had almost forgotten with all the fighting and the hiding that the birds didn't care, they would still fly out and still sing, as long as there was a sky to fly in they would come.

Because they are near the beach, they are seagulls, culling to each other. He watches them through the long open window in the kitchen. The birds crying out and dive bombing into the lapping waves of the ocean searching for food.

Luna has come up behind him, she is wearing a yellow house dress of Fluer's because after two weeks in the Malfoy Manor basement her clothing was nothing but shreds and dirt. Fleur is much taller then her and the dress falls well below the knees, but she likes the color, and she hasn't worn anything _clean_ in such a long time. She watches the gulls fly into the clouds. "It's beautiful here."

Fluer comes up behind them, and wipes her hand on the apron tied around her waist. "Zis place, It ez Billz Aunt's, a present from her on our wedding." Fleur does not say anything more about houses, and weddings and goes back to the knives that she had majicked into chopping up onions and corned beef for a hash. Next to this flurry on the counter Bill pours out coffee as black as pitch into delicate china that had originally been Fleur's mothers. He levitates the cups out to everyone. His eyes then travel up the stairs to their spare bedroom. "Has she come down yet?"

"Not yet," Fleur levitates all the ingredients she has just chopped into a waiting heated cast iron skillet, stirring the sizzling mass with her wand. "She haz not had an eazy night." she says almost like an afterthought, but more like a statement, eyes turning up to her husband as she accepts the coffee the has majicked to her. His hand rests on her back, and he rubs it, his touch telling her that she did all she could.

Ron turns away from the window, and sips hips his coffee, feeling the kick back down to his feet. His eyes travel up to the tiny closed bedroom door.

"Harry is with her Ron," Luna lays a hand on his arm, her eyes are brown and soft and reassuring. "So I'm sure everything'll be alright."

Ron doesn't know what to say. Things haven't been alright, not for a long time. He gulps his coffee and waits for his two other friends to come down.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

The cuts sting when she unwinds the bandage, and blood has stuck to the wound. She lowers her arm into the bathwater. Once sodden, the bandage comes loose and she peels it away, and drapes it over the edge of the tub. A streak of crimson dances around her floating arm. She tilts her arm down, and closes her eyes, going underwater, opening them to see the specs of blood waving above her like colorful banners.

**[**_"Just what did you and your friends take from my vault?" the breath was hot and rancid on he neck, her arms were forcefully splayed out, pinned to the ground._

"_I didn't take anything…please..I didn't take anything!.." _

"_I don't believe you!-" _

_A white hot poker of pain carved its way into her arm, the scream tore from her throat. Then another when the horrendous, mind shattering pain of the Cruciatus Curse assaulted its way up her body._

_Her body arches from the pain. Her screams stopped being singular things, and became one long continuous wail of agony._**]**

"Hermione?"

The knock on the door echoed underwater. Her head came to the surface with a splash, and she gasped for a moment. She wiped the water that had fallen into her eyes, griping to the edges of the tub.

"Hermione? You alright?" Harry tried again from the other side of the door.

"I'll be out in a minute," Hermione said, letting her body float for a moment longer in the blood tinged water before pulling the corked stopper out of the drain. She climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in the blue towel that hung on the iron rack next to the bear claw tub. Beads of water dripped from her hair, dripping onto the floor as she walked barefoot to the door and opened it.

Harry turned to the noise, standing only about a foot away from the bathroom door, he had been waiting for her to come out because he had been concerned. He was still wearing the same clothes from last night, after having fallen asleep across the foot of the bed, Hermione's head resting in his lap the entire time.

Harry took in the sight of Hermione dripping wet, in nothing but a towel, "Sorry-" a moment of awkwardness settled over him, but he still manages his next question: "Are you feeling better?"

"I need my clothes-" her words came on the heels of his, a bead of water dripped off her lashes.

"Yeah sorry," Harry moved out of the way, his backed turned towards her. He stood facing a wizard painting of Ron's Aunt Murriel's last visit to the French Rivera, her parasol being blown about by a sharp gust of wind, making her face scrunch up in annoyance. He listens to the sounds of Hermione looting around the bottomless space of her beaded bag for clean clothes.

"Harry?"

Her voice turned him around. He expected her to be dressed, but instead she was sitting in a floral print upholstered chair, still wrapped in the blue towel. The side of the towel had become flecked in red from the cuts on her arm pressing against it. A roll of cloth bandage was in her hand. "I can't reach- "she sat there with the roll of bandage, cradling her injured arm in her lap, looking lost. "Could you-"

The words weren't even out of her mouth completely before Harry came over to her and knelt down beside her. He took the bandage from her, unraveling it, and wrapped it around her still damp arm.

She shivered a bit from the air on her bare wet skin, as she watched him bind the cuts in silence, hiding the horrible '_Mudblood'_ away from the world. She made a silent wish that this wasn't the type of wound that would scar. "Thank you."

Harry tied off the bandage, but was still holding to her arm. He turned his eyes up to her. His free hand moved to rest on her shoulder, and his thumb traced the bare flesh there, gently. "I'll let you get dressed. I'll be down stairs, alright?"

Hermione nods, and watches him stand up, and her eyes close a moment later when he takes her face in his hands and presses a soft and gentle to her temple, a bit of pain and sweet release escapes in the form of a sigh at the contact. He pulls away and she watches him walk out the little door before gathering the small bedded bag back up to begin searching through it again.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

Dobby had been right.

It was such a beautiful place. The sun rose a delicate pink over the lapping waves, the gulls calling to each other overhead.

A cool wind swept up from the water, wavering the tufts of long grass that stood in groups over the white dunes of sand.

She was dressed in dry clothes, jeans , clean shirt and her wool coat, but her feet were bare, sinking into the sand, her eyes stared at the lapping waves of the ocean.

"He wouldn't want you to be sad Hermione," Luna was kneeling on the sand a foot behind Hermione, lying a collection of tiny purple flowers next to a smooth stone that stood erect in the sand.

The wind blew past Hermione's long thick hair, as she turned to face the little headstone that had been erected there last night by Harry:

_Here lies Dobby, a Free Elf_

"He was a brave elf, and he would want you to be brave too." Luna arranged her small bundle of flowers on the sand, and smoothed it out like she was smoothing out the wrinkles in a table cloth. "There is too much sadness in the world already."

Hermione came up over the dune, and lowered herself on her knees beside Harry, who was sitting cross legged next to Luna, moving a broken piece of mirrored glass back and forth in his hand.

Ron is kneeling at the foot of the little grave, and his eyes follow Hermione as she lowers herself down onto the sand. "You alright?"

She gives him the slightest nod, and feels his hand on her shoulder. "Brave is what you were Hermione, don't you forget that alright?"

A whispered smile comes to her face and she lets the cool air and the touch bring her back a little more into the world.

She turns to Harry, watching him flick the piece of glass back and forth, back and forth. She lays a hand on his back, like he had done to her inside, and his eyes blink towards hers.

Luna lowers herself completely into the sand, folding the skirt of her borrowed dress over her crossed legs, "We're still living." she stares at the headstone that Harry had carved, a wisp of a smile on her face. "I think Dobby would be proud of us."

Hermione eyes travel to each of the three sitting there, feeling their gazes return to her, as a thick breeze laden with salt blows past them.

"Yeah," she agrees. "I think he would."

* * *

**xxxxXxxx**

**End.**

Forgive me, I have no idea why all my DH stuff turns out to be so sad, but I can't help it. The atmosphere of the whole last book was heavy and bittersweet, and heavy, and – so I blame J.K. Rowling. And Emma Watson, who's acting in this scene made my jaw drop at how tragically realistic she portrayed it.

R/R please

Mystic


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